As the twenty-first century approaches, the practice of law is changing rapidly. Though law has survived many millennia, what is new—and what is old—in its practice may surprise you. I shall describe some of those changes here, pointing out some important ethical issues I think they raise.

New Look of Lawyers
Expect lawyers to continue to serve as your Presidents, Vice-Presidents, U.S. Senators, and local representa tives. But also expect to find more lawyers among your bankers, real estate financiers, university adminis trators, high school principals, au thors, theologians, police, ethicists, and even doctors. Many more indi viduals will use a legal education to supplement their expertise, even though they do not actually practice law.

This infiltration of the legally trained into traditionally non-legal environments is a response to increased litigation, government regulation, and rule-governed complexity of corporations. Increasingly, an analytical and practical understanding of the law will make those doing non-legal work more attractive job candidates. Should the rebel Dick in Shakespeare's Henry VI reappear in the twenty-first century, he would have to search many unlikely places to "kill all the lawyers".

Loss of Control
What about those lawyers we've known as lawyers—the large-firm, small-firm, and in-house-corporate attorneys? What will become of them in the twenty-first century? Expect these lawyers to experience a significant loss of control over their own work. Partners in many firms have historically been allowed to choose assignments, take new clients, and bill within their own discretion. Though the law has long been a bastion of individualism in the business world, it probably will not continue to be. Increasingly, the market is forcing clients to demand that lawyers account for how they bill and to limit what they bill. Such client demands are forcing firms to try to cut costs and maximize return on each lawyer's time. Increasingly, lawyers must justify taking an interesting but insufficiently profitable case.

Technology
It has been said that by the year 2000 there will be just two types of business: those embracing technology—and those looking for a good bankruptcy attorney. Lawyers are not exceptions. Technology is no longer an extravagance for the practicing attorney. Soon it will be essential to a competitive legal practice.

Lawyers and their firms are already responding to rapid changes in technology. Law libraries, especially in large firms, are quickly becoming almost "paperless" in their research capabilities. Computers have already drastically changed the way most firms process and revise documents in complex and multiple transactions. Computers are already the standard medium of research, correspondence, and the preparation of legal forms.

The ability to "globally connect" has made an enormous impact on legal services. While the twenty-first century may never see "the law firm without walls", expect practice by state quickly to give way to national and international patterns of practice.

Re-engineering the Law Department
The twenty-first century promises to make changes for the in-house corporate legal counsel as well. In a changing and ever more competitive environment, corporations are "re- engineering" legal departments as well as other operations. A recent American Corporate Counsel Association conference was devoted to re-engineering the law department. Among the topics were: (1) cost- effective and efficient use of outside legal counsel, including discounted fees for volume work and other novel payment mechanisms, (2) the use of technology to communicate with outside counsel and the corporate client and to manage litigation, and (3) development of comprehensive strategies for the corporation's operations. In-house counsel were urged to do more with less before their employer did it for them.

Marketing
Lawyers and their firms will continue to react to an increasingly competitive market. Law firms will not only compete against each other, they will also compete against consulting firms, accounting firms, and others performing services overlapping those they provide. Knowing how to market a product or service legally has often helped law firms keep the business clients they have and to win new clients. In order to distinguish themselves from similar services, law firms will continue to produce sophisticated seminar presentations, newsletters, and other professional marketing devices. In creasingly, law firms will have marketing departments.

Legal specialization will continue to increase, especially in areas of growth such as environmental law, health care, international business, computers, and financial products. No doubt, new areas will emerge. Law firms—and lawyers—with a deep expertise in both law and a specific industry or technology will have a distinct advantage over the "general practitioner".

Impact on Ethics
What will all these changes mean for legal ethics?

Lawyers acting both as consultants and attorneys will find traditional roles blurred. Clients, at times, rely on lawyers for business advice as well as legal advice. This can produce difficulty in maintaining the ability of the lawyer to provide independent legal advice that may run counter to the profitability of the clients' business. Lawyers will have to find new ways to preserve the independence of their legal judgment.

Technology, which tends to direct legal services towards regimented solutions, threatens the legal axiom of considering each case on its own facts. Even with its sophisticated legal forms and comprehensive searches, technology cannot always identify solutions for specific or unique fact situations. Lawyers would be ill advised to rely on such form over the substance of their problem solving and analytical skills.

As firms increase in size (major firms often have hundreds of lawyers) and as technology makes practice global, conflicts of interest once rare may become common. An international firm may, for example, find itself representing a client in Nebraska whose interests are adverse to those of a client (in a different office) in Queensland or Singapore. Law firms will have to find new ways to avoid such conflicts of interest or the profession may have to allow more conflicts to be managed rather than requiring that they be avoided.

Re-engineering law departments can displace employees without any guarantee of increased profitability. What responsibilities do lawyers have to insist that harm to displaced employees be considered in assessing any proposal to re-engineer a law department?

New areas of specialization will no doubt give lawyers the job of defending unique but unpopular positions.

So much for what may change. What will remain the same? The lawyer, when practicing law, will still have the obligation of providing each client with competent legal service, whoever the client may be. The lawyer will still have to find a way to be both ethical and a good advocate of the client's cause. Was that ever possible? I think so. As law professor Monroe Friedman pointed out, in discussing Lincoln's biography by David Herbert, Abraham Lincoln earned the title "Honest Abe" while practicing law. Abe's honesty was consistent with avid pursuit of clients and fees, indifference to whether a client's cause was just, and a good deal of tactical shrewdness, zeal, and creativity in his client's behalf. The twenty-first century should have room for many such honest Abes.

American society will continue to have a love-hate relationship with lawyers. It will demand its legal rights on an ever-increasing spectrum of socio-economic issues. At the same time, it will often frown upon the champion of a (currently) unpopular cause. Combined with new conditions, this old relationship should make the work of the twenty- first century lawyer interesting.